On posting removed archived content

[Arcanist]

WoTC has recently removed their old 3.x era archive. Whether this is permanent or not, remains to be seen. Would it be against forum rules to post a link to a RAW file where users could freely access the formerly published material or would this be a violation of the Copyrighted Content rule?

[Tarmor]

WoTC has recently removed their old 3.x era archive. Whether this is permanent or not, remains to be seen. Would it be against forum rules to post a link to a RAW file where users could freely access the formerly published material or would this be a violation of the Copyrighted Content rule?

Unless it is specifically OGC content, then even a link to it would be against forum rules unless you have the permission of the copyright holder.

[Arcanist]

Unless it is specifically OGC content, then even a link to it would be against forum rules unless you have the permission of the copyright holder.

I am unsure if the old archived content was actually OGL content. If such is not the case than I suppose the content is lost unless someone else is willing to risk the C&D/DMCA to actually share it because I refuse to do so.

[Roland St. Jude]

I am unsure if the old archived content was actually OGL content. If such is not the case than I suppose the content is lost unless someone else is willing to risk the C&D/DMCA to actually share it because I refuse to do so.

Sheriff: We are not willing to risk that either. Thanks for asking. As a general principle, when a rights-holder makes their material available online for open access, you can share links to that here. They can stop sharing it, if they want to, and having once published it doesn't give us the rights to publish it on our own.

(Also, even if something is OGL/OGC content, that isn't an unlimited license to repost it.)

[Rawhide]

To clarify by way of a different example:

Some video game publishers have released their game for free, anyone could download and play the game, but no longer provide it for free. Even if you downloaded the game while it was free, you cannot distribute it to others.

However, some publishers have made their games public domain, or another license that allows sharing. Once they have done that, they cannot take it back. You can share those games as much as you want even once the original site no longer provides it.

Check the license of any work you have downloaded that you want to share. Have they explicitly allowed you to share it as much as you want?